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More Than Meets the Eye
Carla Cassidy
You're the one.Shy, scholarly Dr. Phoebe Jones blushed when sexy private investigator Kevin Cartwright uttered those words. But when the handsome ex-cop explained she was one of four lost siblings he'd been hired to find, she nearly fainted headfirst into his strong, sculpted arms.Yet someone else was also after the beautiful doctor and her heirloom necklace–the key to her mysterious past. Suddenly she and Kevin were posing as lovers as they raced to the ocean to uncover the truth. But Phoebe's passionate response to "make-believe" kisses was anything but pretend…nor was her desire to hear the sworn bachelor say the most magical words of all….
Long ago and far away,
the story goes, there was a world filled with light and laughter and love. But quakes came, shaking the land and hiding it beneath the sea. Slowly the people adapted to their new world—and they thrived. They stayed hidden, but sometimes outsiders spotted them, leading to the legends of the sea.
Yet though the people were peaceful, trouble came about. Should they contact the outer lands? When the last battle began, the king of this land—of Pacifica—sent his four children far away in order to protect them. He didn’t send them alone—they had guardians and talismans for protection.
But the world was harsher than King Okeana expected, and his children were left bereft. The two youngest daughters didn’t remember their homeland, and the oldest daughter and son had memories of anger and loss and pain.
Now, however, it was time for the siblings to be reunited—to come home to reclaim what was lost…if they dared!
More Than Meets the Eye
Carla Cassidy
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
To Carlee,
The newest light in my life. Thank you for being a grandchild whom I can love and spoil and adore—then send home. I love you!
CARLA CASSIDY
is an award-winning author who has written over thirty-five books for Silhouette. In 1995, she won Best Silhouette Romance from Romantic Times for Anything for Danny. In 1998, she also won a Career Achievement Award for Best Innovative Series from Romantic Times.
Carla believes the only thing better than curling up with a good book to read is sitting down at the computer with a good story to write. She’s looking forward to writing many more books and bringing hours of pleasure to readers.
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Epilogue
Chapter One
A wild-goose chase.
Kevin Cartwright feared that’s exactly what he was indulging in when he entered the automatic doors of the Kansas City Memorial Hospital.
After three years of false leads and dashed hopes, he really didn’t expect this new development to pan out. But the moment he’d seen her on television, he’d known he had to check her out.
“I’m here for an appointment with Dr. Phoebe Jones,” he said to the lobby receptionist.
“Her office is on the fourth floor,” the elderly woman explained. “Take the elevator up then ask at the nurses’ station and they’ll direct you to Dr. Jones’s office.”
A moment later Kevin stood in the elevator and stifled a yawn with the back of his hand. It was only noon, but he’d already been on a plane for five hours. Apparently the good doctor only took appointments during her lunch hour and so he’d had to take a redeye flight to get from Southern California to Kansas City before noon.
He tried to ignore the antiseptic smell that permeated the building, the “hospital” scent evoking in him memories of intense pain and crippling fear.
Don’t think about it, he told himself. Just don’t think about it. There was no way he wanted to fall back into memories of that time so long ago.
He found the nurses’ station on the fourth floor with no problem and was taken to Dr. Jones’s office by one of the nurses.
The office was small, furnished simply with a desk, two chairs, and a wall of bookcases behind the desk. The bookcases held nothing but medical tombs, the desk, a computer, and an appointment book.
There were no personal artifacts, no photos, no vase of flowers…nothing to indicate anything about the woman who belonged to the office.
Even in here, the hospital smell lingered and Kevin felt the unwelcome memories once again trying to intrude. It had been five years ago that he’d last been in a hospital and it vaguely surprised him that the memories were so strong that it felt as if it had only been yesterday.
He consciously shoved them away and focused on the task at hand. She’s got to be the right one, he thought as he sat in the chair opposite the desk.
Adrenaline pumped through him as he anticipated that after three long years, it was possible he’d finally found one of the four people he’d been hired to find.
“Good afternoon.” The soft, feminine voice drifted from the doorway and a second later she stepped into his sight.
“Hello,” he returned, half rising from his seat. His pulse accelerated slightly as he gazed at her.
He told himself it had nothing to do with the fact that she was one sexy-looking woman, but rather because it was possible he was finally going to be successful in partially wrapping up one of his most difficult cases.
Still, she was certainly easy on the eyes.
She waved him back down as she eased into the chair behind her desk. “I’m Dr. Jones and you must be Kevin Cartwright.”
“Yes, that’s right.” He couldn’t see the necklace. Beneath the smock she wore, she had on a green turtleneck that did dazzling things to her green eyes, but hid the necklace that had brought him to her in the first place.
“What can I do for you, Mr. Cartwright?” She opened up an appointment book and stared down. “According to my secretary, you were quite insistent on meeting me today, but you were vague about the purpose for this meeting.”
She tucked a strand of honey-colored hair behind her ear, then looked at him once again. In her eyes he saw a no-nonsense directness. “If you’re from a drug company, I can tell you right now that I don’t do the ordering and so we’d be wasting each other’s time.”
“No, I’m not from any company. I saw the news story about the little boy who lost his arm in a mowing accident. You and your team of doctors made national news with the successful surgery to reattach the limb.”
She nodded. “Michael is a good kid and we were very happy with the success of the operation.”
“It sounds as if Michael is a little fighter.” For the first time since he’d walked into the office, she smiled and Kevin felt the force of that gorgeous smile in the pit of his stomach.
“He certainly is,” she agreed.
“The television screen didn’t do you justice.” He hadn’t meant to say it, but it was what had been going around in his head.
She was thinner than she’d looked on television, although she certainly had curves in all the right places. And there was no way the television screen had been able to capture the intense green of her eyes or the soft golden glow of her shoulder-length hair.
The smile that had momentarily lifted the corners of her lush lips disappeared abruptly at his words. “What is it you want, Mr. Cartwright?” She glanced at the delicate silver watch on her wrist. “I have another surgery scheduled in exactly fifteen minutes.”
“I think you’re the woman I’ve been looking for,” he explained.
The coolness on her pretty features intensified. “Is that some sort of a pick-up line?” She grasped the phone and he knew he was mere seconds from being escorted out of the place by security.
“No! Of course not,” he protested, realizing how it sounded to her. First he tells her the television screen didn’t do her justice, then he tells her she’s the girl he’s been looking for…she probably thought he was some sort of crazed stalker. “What I meant to say is that I think you are one of the people I’ve been trying to find for the past three years. I’m a private investigator, Dr. Jones, and three years ago a man contacted me and hired me to find four siblings.”
“Siblings?” For the first time her eyes lit with interest.
He nodded. “Three sisters and a brother.”
She sat back in her chair and gazed at him intently. “And you think it’s possible that I might be one of those siblings?”
“Yes, I think it’s possible. I know the woman I’m looking for has the first name of Phoebe.” But, he’d also been told that the people he sought would probably live near the ocean, and Kansas City, Missouri, couldn’t be farther away from an ocean.
A dainty frown appeared between her perfectly arched pale eyebrows. “But, Phoebe isn’t such an odd name. There must be hundreds…thousands of women named Phoebe,” she protested, then looked at her watch once again. “And I really don’t have time to get into this right now.”
She stood and he stood as well. He hadn’t been able to ask her about the necklace and that was the key to discovering if she was the Phoebe he was looking for.
“Look, could we meet later this evening to discuss this further?” He could see the hesitation in her eyes. “We could meet some place public, and if you think I’m wasting your time, you’d be free to walk away.”
She glanced at her watch once again, then looked back at him. “All right,” she agreed, although he could see the skepticism in her eyes. “There’s a little café called Myrtle’s not far from here. I’ll meet you there at seven.”
“What’s the address of this Myrtle’s?” he asked.
She smiled tightly. “You’re a private investigator, Mr. Cartwright, I’m sure you can manage to find it somehow.” With these words, she turned and disappeared out of the office.
Kevin stared after her, wondering just how difficult the doctor was going to be. As he left the office and stepped into the elevator, he reached into his pocket and withdrew a large chunk of gold nugget. The nugget had been his latest payment for his time and expenses.
He walked across the hospital lobby, then exited into the bright midday sunshine. He drew a deep breath of the early spring-scented air, grateful to leave the hospital and all its memory-stirring odors behind.
As he strode across the parking lot to his rental car, he worried the nugget between his fingers, his thoughts filled with the man who had given it to him.
Loucan. A strange name for a strange man. Initially when Kevin had been contacted by him and told that Loucan wanted to hire him to find four siblings, Kevin had thought nothing about it.
He’d been involved in finding people before—adopted children seeking their biological parents, parents wanting to find children. It was a large part of what he did as a private investigator.
But this case had been strange from the very beginning. Loucan had initially contacted him by phone and they had set up a meeting at a restaurant on the wharf in Santa Barbara.
The tall, powerfully built man had retained Kevin’s services and had paid him with a handful of high-quality pearls. Since that time three years before, Kevin had met with Loucan several times a year and each time had been paid with perfect pearls, old gold coins, or gold nuggets.
Instantly, Kevin’s ex-cop nose had smelled a mystery, but it was a mystery he had yet to crack. If Phoebe Jones had the necklace he’d thought he had spotted her wearing in the news report, then she was a piece of the puzzle.
He shoved the nugget back into his pocket, then got into his red rental car. At the moment, the biggest mystery he had to solve was to discover exactly where Myrtle’s Café was located.
Phoebe stood beneath a hot shower spray in her bathroom, hoping the steamy water would wash away at least a little bit of her exhaustion.
Her morning had begun before five, when an emergency appendectomy had needed to be done. That had set the tone for the hectic day. Besides the three surgeries that had been planned well in advance, she’d had three more emergency surgeries to undergo.
Still, the exhaustion was nothing new. Working at an inner-city hospital, it was no secret that all the doctors and nurses were overworked and underpaid. The only thing that compensated for that was the incredible sense of satisfaction her work brought to her.
She stepped out of the shower and grabbed a fluffy blue towel. Drying off, she thought of the man who had been in her office at noon that day.
Kevin Cartwright. He was a devilishly handsome man, his light-brown hair a perfect foil for his deep blue eyes. In the first instant of seeing him sitting across from her desk, she’d felt an immediate magnetic pull toward him.
But now she wasn’t sure if it had been the man himself or the sweet possibility of his words that had drawn her to him.
Family. Was it possible she might have family members somewhere out there? She had given up hope of ever finding any a long time ago.
And now this good-looking stranger had appeared in her office and spoken a magic word…siblings. Sisters and a brother—it would be so wonderful.
She padded out of the bathroom and into the bedroom, where she had carefully laid out the clothes she was going to put on.
As she dressed, she steadfastly shoved thoughts of the possibility of finding family members aside, afraid to get her hopes up only to have them dashed once again.
It took her only a few minutes to pull on a pair of tan slacks and a green and tan flowered blouse. She ran a brush quickly through her shoulder-length blond hair, touched a dab of pink lipstick to her lips, then grabbed her purse and left her apartment.
Moments later she was out on the sidewalk headed toward Myrtle’s. She’d moved into her apartment building when she’d been a resident at the hospital and money, or lack thereof, had been an issue.
The apartment building was not only walking distance to the hospital, but also to the café she frequented on a regular basis and a public library.
Even after her residency had ended and money woes had eased, she’d never considered moving from the small apartment building. She liked keeping things the way they were.
It was fifteen minutes before seven when she entered Myrtle’s Café and took her usual seat by the window. From this vantage point she could see Kevin as he arrived.
“Hi, Dr. Jones,” Camilla greeted her with a friendly smile as she poured Phoebe a glass of iced tea. “Long day?”
Phoebe smiled at the attractive older woman. “They’re all long days.”
“The usual?” Camilla asked.
“Yes, but could you wait to place the order? I’m meeting somebody.”
One of Camilla’s gray eyebrows danced upward. “Somebody of the male persuasion?”
“Yes, but it isn’t what you think,” Phoebe hurriedly said.
